


The Long Way Down Job

by Corinth (syren_song)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Leverage
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syren_song/pseuds/Corinth
Summary: Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian team up to help a grieving widow find evidence of corporate misconduct. Oh, and that evidence just so happens to be located halfway up a mountain on a dead guy's body. How hard could it be?(Based on the Leverage episode "The Long Way Down Job," hence the title. The reader does not have to have watched Leverage to understand what's going on.)





	The Long Way Down Job

**Author's Note:**

> listen my dc phase was like, 6 years ago but the gremlin that lives inside my brain came up with this idea and wouldn't let go.
> 
> liberties taken with Leverage, Batman canon, and the general aspects of mountain climbing and technology. if TV can do it, why can't I?
> 
> for Leverage fans, Bruce is Nate, Dick is Sophie, Jason is Eliot, Tim is Hardison, and Damian is Parker, which fits more or less cleanly. for Batman fans, imagine this is a universe in which none of the boys were raised/adopted by Bruce, with the minor exception of Dick, which is referenced at one point during the fic. Dialogue is mostly based off of the show, so apologies to any Tim Drake fans. Leverage fans will notice that scenes have been altered, rearranged, or deleted as I saw fit--screenwriting is a lot different from short stories! Batman fans will notice some characterization changes, especially in the softening and smoothening of Jason and Damian's hard edges.
> 
> I think that about covers it, but pls feel free to leave comments if anything needs to be changed or any tags need to be added. feedback appreciated!

Bruce Wayne, following the deaths of his parents and the subsequent demise of Wayne Enterprises, created a life out of going unnoticed. Said life consisted of his own rise and fall in the eyes of the law, an unhealthy affair with alcohol, a seedy Goth bar called The Bat Cave, and four ~~sons~~ ~~criminals~~ _teammates_ , each with their own specialized set of skills. Dick Grayson, acrobat, linguist, grifter. Jason Todd, military expert and hitter. Tim Drake, resident genius, hacker. And Damian, the thief. Together, they take on clients that the law can’t—or won’t—help.

The clients for their little non-profit generally stood out from the Cave’s clientele. Karen Craddock walked in wearing a navy pea coat, blue jeans, and brown boots, almost bright against the wash of blacks and greys, but Bruce’s gaze caught on the sadness in her eyes.

“Mr. Wayne?” she asked tentatively. Bruce stood to greet her, one hand outstretched for a handshake.

“Mrs. Craddock. Please, have a seat.” Karen slid the purse from her shoulder and set it lightly on the table. “What brings you here today?”

Karen fidgeted slightly with her hands, nervously turning her wedding band back and forth. “It would be easier for me to show you. If you would allow me…”

Bruce gestured for her to continue, and Karen extracted an iPod from her purse. With a few taps, a man’s face appeared on the screen. He was dressed warmly and backdropped by the white-blue-grey of mountains. His voice poured through, speaking sweet nothings smattered with details about the climb. “…but you are missing a really great climb. I love you.” His hand moved toward the screen and the recording ended.

Karen moved her hand across the screen, shadowing the curve of his face. “That was the last time I ever heard his voice. He disappeared in that storm, and they never found the body.”  
  
“Why don't you tell me about him?” Bruce asked, taking a sip of his whiskey.  
  
“Jim grew up on a Kansas farm. We met climbing. He said the first time he climbed a mountain, it was like going to another world. He put himself through college and started his own investment firm to help small businesses like his family's farm. Then about five years ago, he partnered with Merced Financial Services, Simon Hurt's company.” Karen paused, tapping the screen a few more times to bring up a picture of a group of men with their arms around each other. They all wore mountain climbing gear. “That's Hurt, third over.”

“He's the guy that races cars, right?”

“Mm, he races anything that goes fast and costs a lot. He also climbs mountains. He liked that Jim could climb, so he took him on a bunch of his expeditions.”

Bruce leaned back, eyeing Karen appraisingly. “Listen, I am sorry. I'm not sure I can help you with this—"  
  
“There's something's wrong at Merced Financial, okay?” Karen’s voice broke. “One division, the mortgage investments, Jim said they were seizing properties he wasn't even sure they owned, and they were signing foreclosure forms without even reading them.” Bruce was struck again by the sadness of her eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Robo-signing. They sign a thousand foreclosures, and they bet the homeowners don't have the money to fight the case. The courts will stop it, if your husband had proof.”

Karen fidgeted again. “After he disappeared, our house was broken into. Our computer was stolen. His e-mails are wiped.”

“Is there any paper trail?”

“Not at our house. But there may be one place no one's looked.”

Bruce tapped his fingers against his glass contemplatively, already planning how to break things to his team.

 

*

 

Bruce possibly should have thought harder about the job before mentioning it to Tim, a fact he pondered as he watched that little vein in Tim’s temple throb. How much stress could it take before Tim needed medical attention? He felt he ought to know. Thankfully they were in the backroom of The Bat Cave, which was relatively close to the street. Relatively easy access, ambulance-wise.

“This is ridiculously dangerous!” Tim yelled. “It's a danger cupcake with hypothermia icing. The peak is 20,000 feet high. Only half the people who try actually make it to the top.” Tim gestured wildly, trying to encompass the vastness of the mountain, the specific risks of their mission, and the general incompetence of people.

“They figure Jim Craddock died on the way back down, just hours above the base camp here.” Bruce gestured, more helpfully, towards a diagram of the mountain which had the base camp marked in red.

Tim’s vein jumped again, and Bruce mentally calculated Tim’s pulse. “I'm sorry... died on the way down? That's why I don't climb! You know there's like a hundred dead people scattered all over that rock. That's nasty. Millionaires, man, they go up these mountains just to have fun, and people die trying to drag their asses back down. But, oh, happy day, because the rich guy got saved.” Bruce gamely ignored the fact that Tim had grown up in wealth, that he had climbed in the past, and that his father was likely one of those people.

“Now, Jim Craddock. They were the last ones on the mountain last winter, right?”

Tim blew a stray strand of hair out of his face, allowing himself a second to calm down. Bruce was quietly relieved. “Yeah, the storm our guy disappeared in shut down the mountain for three months.”

Bruce clapped his hands together. “We have one shot at this. If we get there the day the mountain reopens, we can find him before anyone else has a chance.”

“Find him? You mean the dead guy?”

Bruce stood in sullen, guilty silence. Tim groaned into his hands.

 

*

 

Bruce and Jason enter the main tent of the encampment to find a group of people milling about, chatting and drinking. Jason frowned grumpily, tugging at his thick gloves, and thought Dick would enjoy this much more than he would—Jason had never seen so many designer sweaters, puffy vests, and knitted caps in his life. What he said was, “This is not what I expected.”

Bruce grunts, either in agreement or acknowledgement. “Climbing is a rich man's playground. These people pay 50 grand to get flown halfway up the mountain, then they climb to the peak, with a dozen guides carrying their luggage.”

Dick fluttered in next to them. “Pay enough, they'll carry you to the top. Literally. Hello, Bruce.”

“Dick.”

Tim slouches in, throwing his arms heavily around Jason. The thing about Jason, Tim thought, is that if you gave him time to react, you were giving him time to startle and bolt. Hence, throwing himself at Jason as quickly as possible.

“Let go.” Or not. Jason’s eyebrows, if possible, got even grumpier.

“I'm just so damn cold.” Not to mention tired. Could he get an IV drip of caffeine? Tim daydreamed idly about how biologically disastrous that would be.

“I don't care, man.” Jason pushed Tim off with a scowl. Bruce was doing an admirable job of pretending nothing was going on, but Dick communicated with a complicated series of eyebrow movements that this was hilarious, and there would definitely be blackmail later.

“Just please set me on fire. Do something. I'm all shivering, and I think one of my nipples fell off, 'cause the sensation...”

“Don't tell me stuff like that!”

“Tell him what?” Damian asked, successfully appearing from nowhere. Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering—not for the first time—why the hell he bothered.

“Nothing.” Tim’s voice was too high, which was suspicious. Must come up with a distraction, fast. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Damian responded, definitely suspicious. Damn. This was why God made coffee. Dick stifled a laugh.

Bruce, for the first and possibly last time, took pity on Tim. “Okay, Damian, listen. You can climb a mountain, right?”

Damian sucked his teeth. “I climb skyscrapers. You can walk up a mountain.” He made sure to inject the words with an appropriate level of disdain.

“It's not the same.” Jason growled. “Are there avalanches on skyscrapers?”  
  
“ No.” Damian paused. “But that would be an acceptable challenge.” In Damian-to-English, he thought it’d be cool.

“Just how dangerous is this gig you took without checking with us first?” Dick asked.

Bruce squinted in thought. “About that…”  


*

 

Bruce pulled the five of them into a tight circle, extracting an iPod and holding it in the center. Quickly, he pulled up a picture of Jim Craddock, zooming into his pocket where a notebook peaked into view.

“This notebook contains Craddock’s findings on the mortgage fraud. The rest of the teams on this mountain are in a holding pattern until the blizzard clears. However, Damian, Jason, you're going up now.”

Jason and Damian exchanged looks and nodded.

Dick shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “Look, this is really, really sad, and I'm sorry, but we're climbing a mountain to find an executive's diary?”

Bruce straightened. “Merced Financial Services repossesses 100 homes a day. That's 100 families out on the street a day. They're either too afraid or too broke to fight this; either way, that’s 100 families we could be helping, instead of standing here and arguing.”

“I agree with Dick.” Jason crossed his arms—his fighting posture. “This widow doesn't need thieves for a rescue mission.”

Tim piped up. “It's not even a rescue mission. The dude is dead, Bruce. It's treasure hunting.”

Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but was prevented by a commotion. Simon Hunt entered the tent, to the applause of the crowd. Hunt grinned widely and viciously. “Thank you very much. Where's my bloody drink?” Hunt moved into the crowd, smirking and drinking.

Bruce’s jaw tensed. “Listen to me. She needs thieves because this is not a treasure hunt. She needs thieves because this is a race.”

Something about Simon Hunt set them all on edge. The arguments subsided.

“Right,” Bruce continued. “Comms in. Dick, stay here, start working the crowd. Everyone else, with me.”

Bruce led Jason, Tim, and Damian out of the tent and across base camp. “Alright, Tim and I are going to run things from the communications tent, which is just over here.”

Tim jumped in. “Officially, I’m working on a project for the U.S. meteorological survey. I should have access to the comm relays, the satellite, Internet, and the cell-tower repeater. Nobody talks to anybody on or off this mountain unless we want them to.”

They were briefly interrupted as several men, all in red, passed.

“Who are these guys in red?” Jason asked.

“They're forest rangers.” Bruce answered smoothly. “They're why we have this window of opportunity. Hurt's team has to be cleared to officially hit the trail, which will take a couple hours. Jason, Damian, stick together and be careful. You’re unofficial. Don’t be seen.”

A gravity sunk into their group, and Tim felt a secret thrill. He loved the way it felt when the job got started, the details becoming story becoming action. Jason’s and Damian’s faces settled into frowns, but unlike the temperamental dark frowns of earlier, they were what Dick called their “work frowns.” The kind that meant the personal tensions were fading away, and their attentions were turning towards the job. Tim shivered, this time not from the cold.

Once they got to the communications tent, Tim took charge. “Mr. Craddock's parka had a locator beacon inside. “The signal isn’t strong enough to reach all the way down to base camp, but with this receiver—” Tim tossed a receiver to Jason, “—the closer you get to him, the louder the ping. Now, I'll do my best to lead you to his last-known location.”

“What about Hurt?” Damian asked gruffly. Bruce answered.

“Leave that to Dick. He's keeping Hurt off the mountain, distracting him. You okay with that, Dick?” Bruce’s voice lifted as he turned his attention to the comm.

Dick’s voice was light with amusement and light chastisement. “Bruce, I'm at a party full of drunk millionaires far from home who are dizzy from lack of oxygen. It's like grifter Christmas in here.” In the main tent, Dick surveyed the undoubtedly rich men and women surrounding him, trying not to look like the cat that ate the canary.

Simon Hurt cleared his throat, moving towards the center of the throng. “Ladies and gentlemen, we're climbing this mountain, _I_ am climbing this mountain, to honor the people—especially my dear friend Jim Craddock—who died here doing exactly what they loved to do, proving to the world that with determination and preparation, nothing is impossible. Which is what Merced Financial Services is all about; it's a company where adversity is overcome.”

Dick didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Wow. He is a piece of work.” Hurt continued his droning, piling on sentimental horseshit with a cloying smile. “Bruce, when are Jason and Damian in play?”

Bruce responded from the communications tent. “Any second now. Listen, you get caught up there, just call. I'll suit up.”

Jason snorted. “You'll suit up? You shouldn't even be up here.”

“No, I'm fine.” Bruce insisted.

Jason turned bodily towards him. “We're at 8,000 feet already, Bruce. Altitude sickness kicks in here, alright? You know the symptoms?”

“Headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue.” Bruce wished briefly that he had a drink in hand, which was probably not helping his cause. He tried to dismiss the thought, but the sensation changed from an itch in his fingers to a dull pounding in his head.

“Exactly. Sounds a lot like alcohol withdrawal, doesn't it? So, what do you think it is? You think it's the booze? Or you think it's the blood boiling inside your skull?”

Bruce twitched, the words hitting too close to home. Jason always knew how to hit him where it hurt, and it was always hard not to snap back. “Hey Jason, if you can't handle this, you know—”

“I can handle it just fine, Bruce.” Jason sniped. “But every second you're on this mountain, your clock is ticking. You're very good at what you do, but you can't con a mountain.” Jason pocketed the receiver and walked away before either of them could say something they would regret.

“I’ll be fine,” Bruce said quietly to Jason’s back, but there was no response.

 

*

   
Tim and Damian stood outside the communications tent, each silently cursing the comms for preventing any conversation from being truly private, although glad that Bruce and Jason didn’t have the chance to escalate. Tim searched for a way to broach the silence.

“I'm just saying, I should go up that mountain with you.” Damian scowled, mostly to cover his confusion. It sounded like a statement in a conversation Tim was having with him in his head, and which Damian was not privy to nor could reasonably reconstruct.

“You want to climb?”

Tim fidgeted. “Yeah.”

“A _mountain_?” Tim looked like he was full of regrets, most of them being the last five minutes, or potentially every misguided piece of hacking he had ever committed which led him to this specific moment, but these were his conversational guns and he was sticking to them.

“…Yeah.”

“Drake, I don’t know what kind of foolishness—"

Tim backed up quickly, throwing up his hands. “Okay. Fine. I just think I should keep an eye on you.”

“ _Keep an eye on me_?!” Tim cursed whatever act of God or nature had given him the verbal instincts of a concussed slug.

“Well, not... you...” Tim backpedaled. “You and Jason. It's a dangerous mountain. There could be some polar bears or ill-tempered mountain men, or...”

“This isn't going to become a thing, is it? With you and mountains?” Tim wished for a quick death. He wondered if Jason would cry, and if Dick would throw himself, weeping, onto the casket. He probably would. Dick was a good friend like that.

“W-what? No.” Tim spluttered. “Pl...no. No. This is…not. A thing. Or going to be a thing.”

Damian’s eyes were suspicious, but he nodded once. “Okay.”

Tim exhaled, his puff of breath condensing in front of his breath. “Okay. Okay.” Think fast, Tim, use your instincts. You can still salvage this.

Tim holds his arms out for a hug. “…Hugs for morale?”

Damian glowered at him and started tromping up the mountain. Instincts…bad.

Jason emerged from the communications tent and eyed Tim’s outstretched arms. He stepped into them and patted Tim on the back exactly once before shoving him away again and heading off. “Alright, let's roll,” he called out to Damian.

Bruce strolled out of the tent and towards Tim, who was still standing in roughly the same place in roughly the same position. “What? What are you doing?”

“At least Jason gave me a hug,” Tim muttered, and headed back into the tent.

“Mr. Wayne?” Karen’s voice carried across the snow. Bruce wanted to blame altitude sickness for his headache, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t.

Bruce turned around. “Mrs. Craddock. What are you doing here?”

Her sad eyes were filled with a reckless sort of determination.

 

*

 

Bruce ushered Karen into the communications tent and weighed the pros and cons of asking Dick to sneak him booze. Pros: alcohol. Cons: the risk of getting wasted; taking Dick away from his job; risking him and Dick being seen together before there was reason for them to be; Dick’s judging eyebrows. He stifled a sigh.

“I'm an experienced climber!” Karen cried. “I know my husband, and I know the routes he would've taken!”

Bruce stared at her stonily. “No. You're emotionally involved. It leads to bad decisions.”

Tim desperately wished Dick was there to see this. “I'm sorry, did you just say that? With a straight face?”

Bruce glared. “Not helpful. Not helpful at all.” He turned back to Karen. “Listen, if Hurt sees you up here, he's going to figure out what we're doing, and we're going to lose the only advantage we have. You can watch us, listen to us.” Bruce places a comm in Karen’s palm, which she dutifully places in her ear. “But you have to trust us and just let us do what we do. Okay?” Karen took a seat near the tent’s entrance, temporarily mollified. Bruce turned once again towards Tim. “Where are Jason and Damian?”

“They're pretty far up already.”

“They're gonna burn out at that pace,” Karen fretted.

“We don't need them to actually reach the peak, we just need them to get where we think your husband is. If they need to, they can take pictures of the notebook and send it to us.” Bruce said calmly.

Tim grimaced. “No, they can't. You see this line right here?” He traced the line on the monitor. “Anything above that point, the signal's too weak for data. It's voice only.”

Bruce cracked his knuckles, reassessing. “Great. So, we have to physically bring the notebook down?”

“Yep.” Tim popped the “p.”  
  
“Wonderful.”

 

*

 

In the main tent, Dick drummed his fingers against his leg. “Looks like Hurt's team is getting ready. How hard do you want me to run them?”

Bruce’s voice came in over the comms. “Dick, listen, it's a straight stall. Nothing fancy.”

Dick pouted. “Well, I need to know the teams if I'm gonna run the game.”

Tim chimed in. “I got you, Dick. Anybody who goes up that mountain has to register with park service, so...”

“No, no, no, not names and numbers.” Dick flapped his hands emphatically. Personalities. Feelings—”

“You’re fucking with me.” Bruce deadpanned.

Dick continued as if Bruce hadn’t spoken. “—Karen, you climb, right?”

“Yeah.” Dick scoped out the marks, surveying one group at a time.

“Big sweaters, very cheerful.”

“That's team Strausse. The bald one is Hans Strausse. Acquisitions and mergers for some giant German bank. He's very flirty.”

Dick straightened his clothes before adopting a sly grin and approaching the man. “Guten Tag.”

Strausse glanced over Dick in interest. “Mochten sie etwas schnapps?” he asked, brandishing a drink.

“Mmm. Ja. Danke.” Dick accepted the drink, downed it, and continued on. “Japanese climbers?”

Karen paused a moment. “That's Hiro Miyashita with Makino Finance, a big investment firm, one of Hurt's main competitors. They offered Jim a job a few times.”

“Konichiwa.” Dick greeted him.

Miyashita’s eyes widened and he grinned lecherously. “Konichiwa.”

“That's odd.” Karen said, a frown in her voice. “They're usually at the Alps this time of year. Miyashita's a very serious climber.”

“The mountain is more beautiful now that you are here,” Miyashita flirted. Dick demurred and passed on.

“Very serious about finding out what's inside my pants, anyway. And the Aussies?”

Tim answered this time. “Oh, just some celebrities, rich kids of rich people, people who own newspapers, stuff like that.”

“Tourist climbers,” Karen explained. “They’re Hurt's friends.”

Dick maneuvered behind Simon Hurt as he was busy cavorting with the Australians. Deftly, Dick lifted the cellphone from Hurt’s pocket. “It's really just an excuse to jet around the world partying,” he murmured.

“It's one big worldwide party,” Karen agreed wryly.

Dick brightened. “Well, then, let's get invited. Tim, I need a Paris phone number redirected to my phone.” He listened to the telltale sounds of typing of Tim working.

“Got it. Bellefleur. Number is 06-36-37-84-75.” Dick lifted Hurt’s phone to a flattering angle, mussed his hair slightly, and pouted. After he snapped the picture, he lowered the phone again and speedily connected the image to the phone number Tim gave him.

“Bruce, I could use your help. This play's much better in pairs.”

Bruce grunted, a definite negative. “No, I need to stay here and monitor Damian and Jason. Besides, who knows if I’ll need to step in later. For now, at least, you’re on your own.”

Karen tentatively interjected. “Sorry to interrupt, but what's Dick doing?”

Bruce answered. “He is meeting Hurt for the second time.” Dick smirked before schooling his expression, slipping Hurt’s phone back into his pocket, and readying his French accent. He tapped Hurt on the shoulder. Hurt turned around, and Dick slapped him.

“Ow!” Hurt yelped, bewildered.

“ _Cochon_!” Dick growled, and began to turn away.

“Uh, excuse me. Do you know who I am?”

Dick turned back towards Hurt, lifting an eyebrow. Simon Hurt felt that he was being judged. “ _Oui_. But do you know who I am? No.”

“W-we've never met.” Hurt gulped.

Dick crossed his arms, a gesture he borrowed from Jason, and popped one hip, a gesture decidedly his own. “Huh. _Vraiment_? Mount Rainier. We have the hot toddies. ‘Oh, Quincey, come to my tent. I'll warm you up.’ No? You don't call me?”

Hurt protested, “I don't have your number!”

Dick scoffed, unimpressed. “ _Vraiment_?” he repeated, sidling up to Hurt. "‘Oh, Quincey, you type it for me.’" He mimicked typing on Hurt’s phone. "‘I'm too drunk to touch the little buttons.’"

Hurt scrambled for his phone, desperate for a defense, and instead found a contact with Dick’s picture and (fake) number. “Well, I guess we have met before.”

“Yes, we have met.” Dick paused, allowing his arms to fall, and laid one hand gently on Hurt’s chest. “Get me a drink, I help you remember.”

In the communications tent, Karen leaned back, equal parts impressed and unnerved. “He's kind of scary.”

“You have no idea,” Bruce agreed.

 

*

 

Jason and Damian continued trudging up the mountain, spotting a tent half-buried in the snow. “We're coming up on an orange tent and supplies. Could this be Jim Craddock's tent?” Jason asked.

Tim’s voice answered. “No, man. That's a high camp. They're like little supply depots scattered all the way up the mountain. First aid, oxygen, water, that sort of thing.” Tim paused. “Alright, Bruce, Jim Craddock's last-known communication with base camp…” Damian tuned Tim out slightly as he approached the high camp, unzipping the tent to get a look inside. “…was at north 63 degrees, 6 minutes, 56 seconds, and west 150 degrees, 44 minutes, 34 seconds. That high-camp’s elevation is 10,000 feet, which means that Jason and Damian should be getting a ping off of his beacon.” Tim paused again, tapping at a few keys. Back at the communications tent, Tim frowns, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “But it's—there’s just nothing. I might need to send another transmitter up there to help triangulate Craddock's beacon.”

Bruce toys with the spare transmitter, picking it up before shaking his head once. “No, we can't send another climber on the ridge.”

“You sure about that?” Jason’s voice crackled. Bruce carefully set the transmitter down, Karen eyeing it thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked.

“I found a footprint. Russian. Spetsnaz.”

“Seriously?” Damian grumbled.

“It's a very distinctive footprint,” Jason replied, swiping at Damian. Damian ducked away and out of reach. Together the two of them moved on, unaware they were being watched.

 

*

  
Bruce paced behind Tim’s chair. “Hurt had the same idea we had. Jason, Damian, be careful. You've got some competition up there. Dick, what's Hurt's status?”

In the main tent, Dick answered, “All good. Going nowhere.”

“What was that?” Hurt asked.

Dick pressed his fingers to his collarbone in question, a portrait of innocence. “ _Comment_? Ohh.” He looked down to where Hurt held his phone. “Who are you texting, huh? You flirting with someone else?”

“Listen to you. Nah.” Hurt huffed a laugh and puffed out his chest. “When you're the boss of a company, you don't get much time off. But I tell you what, I will have some more spare time to do some traveling, maybe, get to Paris a bit more often.” His expression was solicitous. Dick patted his cheek.

In the communications tent, Tim made noises of approval. “A text is great. The text he sent that other guy has to transfer here through my cell repeater, which means I can find our Russian, who is…” Brief typing. “…not on the mountain.”

Bruce paused. “What do you mean?”

Tim gestured to the monitor. “This doesn't make any sense. The text he just sent went to a cellphone at the base-camp tent.” A picture popped up, and some of the pieces clicked together in Bruce’s head.

“Miyashita. He sent a text to his competitor.”

“Any suggestions, Bruce?” Dick murmured.

“I...” Bruce glanced over to where Karen sat. Well, where she _had been sitting_ , until she apparently decided to disappear. His eyes flicked towards the transmitter, which was also missing. His headache got a little worse. “No. I have a more pressing problem at the moment.”

 

*

  
Bruce suited up, preparing for the climb. “You were right,” Tim said softly. “She took the other receiver. What are you doing?”

Bruce tugged his sleeves into place. “I'm going after her. You got a signal?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she took the same route Jason and Damian took. She's gonna swing north to triangulate Craddock's signal, and...” Tim swung around, staring Bruce in the eye. “…wait. Are you crazy? Come on, man. She's an experienced climber. Are you kidding me?”

Bruce, now sufficiently equipped, returned Tim’s gaze. “Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get financials on Miyashita's company, cross-reference them with the work you've done on Hurt's, and give it all to Dick. All right, Dick, this is on you. You got to figure out what he's up to.”

“Do not do this,” Dick’s voice warned. “As if you ever listen to me.”

Tim watched uneasily as Bruce exited the tent. “He's gonna die. Jason, Damian, I need you to double back and stop him. Can you?”

“I can hear you, you know,” Bruce said mildly, and began to climb. Tim ignored him.

Jason’s voice came in over the comms. “We're a little busy here, Tim.” So that was a no. Tim slouched in his chair and tried not to groan as he pulled up Miyashita’s accounts, right next to Simon Hurt’s.

On cue, Dick responded. “There's definitely something going on. What'd you find out in the accounts?”

Tim hummed for a moment. “There's been some big stock transfers, like Miyashita. See, this is something you would see before a big corporate takeover. But that's impossible. I mean, there have been no rumors about a buyout this big.”

Dick clicked his tongue. “Hurt did say he was going to have a lot more spare time. Check the climber registrations. Find out which of Miyashita's guys are on the mountain for the first time.”

“Most of them. They don't have a lot of climbing experience, either.”

“That's because they're not climbers. They're lawyers. This is a buyout.” In the main tent, Dick took off his vest, lifted a coat from a nearby chair, and slid it on. “Alright. This is perfect. Mountain camp, there's no reporters, and no other employees.” Dick pushed his hair back and grabbed glasses from the jacket pocket of a passerby. “This is the perfect place for secret negotiations. Hurt is selling the company.”

“He sells the company, and then all those mortgage records disappear into a Japanese corporation, where the privacy laws are tighter than the Swiss,” Tim said thoughtfully.

Dick raised the hood on his jacket. “Yeah, Hurt gets paid and he gets away scot-free. Tim, shut down his phone. He cannot check his stock or his messages for this to work. I'm changing the game.” Over the line, Dick could hear Tim typing, cursing lightly. He spared a thought to wonder what Bruce thought of this, but if he wasn’t saying anything, Tim wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

Dick prowled towards Strausse, scowling fiercly. “Hey! Ein schnapps bitte.” Dick took Strausse’s and knocked it back.

“You are not happy,” Strausse mused.

“Damn right I'm not,” Dick responded in a British accent. “My company came this close to snapping up Merced Financial, and then Miyashita swoops in like a white knight. The second they announce, the stock's gonna go through the roof, and we'll never be able to buy him up. That's six months of my life just wasted!” Dick took a second to catch his breath, then peered at Strausse through his eyelashes. “I'm sorry. I didn't even catch your name.”

“Hans. I am...just a climber.” Strausse stalked away to bark at his fellow Germans.

“Bruce. Bruce?” Dick frowned and tapped his comm. On the mountain side, Bruce struggled through the snow as he approached the high camp. He faltered and fell down on one knee, wrenching himself and moving inside the tent. Dick, of course, knew none of this, and would not have been comforted if he did. “Somebody say something,” Dick begged.

Bruce largely ignored Dick, taking a canister of oxygen from the high camp and breathing deeply through the mask. After a few breaths, he removed the mask again. “Where is Karen, Tim?”

“She’s right ahead of you. Her receiver's working, and between her and Damian's receiver, I'm getting a fix on Jim Craddock's location—but, I mean, she has to know she's high enough. Why does she keep climbing?”

“Because she has to,” Bruce said grimly. “We better find her, or you're going to be hauling two bodies off this mountain instead of one.” Oxygen canister in hand, Bruce trudged on, his eyes scanning the snow for any sight of Karen.  


*

  
Tim frowned at the monitor in front of him. “Okay, thanks to Mrs. Craddock, I have a fix on her husband, but the location is way, way off from the location that Hurt gave the rescue crews. Does anybody else think something really bad went down that night?”

“Wha—Here? Are you kidding me?! There's nothing here!” Jason snapped.

Tim snorted. “Yeah, no. It's got to be there. It's the only logical location for the body to be.”

“Well, you're wrong.”

“No, I’m telling you, you’re standing right on top of it.” Damian frowned at the ground, dragging his foot back and forth, bouncing lightly.

“And I'm telling you that how can we be here, if ‘here’ isn't even here, alright? We’re literally standing in a field of snow!” There was a cracking sound, and Jason and Damian looked down in unison.

“Crevasse!” They yelled, but it was already too late. Jason and Damian fell down, down, down.

In the communications tent, Tim tried—and failed—not to panic. “Jason? Damian? Damian?!” A message popped up on his monitor, showing that their signals were lost. “Oh, Bruce. Bruce, man. We got a problem. Bruce, we...Bruce?”

Out on the mountain side, Bruce finally spotted Karen. He panted for breath. The headache was nearly overwhelming, and the nausea was setting the world into a spin; yet, he struggled forward. He thought of Karen, and of Jim, and of Karen’s sad sad eyes. Mostly, though, he thought of his parents.

“Come on, Bruce. Answer me, man. I-I need you to answer me. Bruce? Bruce!” Tim’s voice, despite the comm being directly in his ear, seemed impossibly far away. Bruce fell to his knees beside Karen’s body and he slipped the oxygen mask over Karen’s face before finally, blissfully, passing out into the snow.

 

*

   
When Bruce came to, he was in the high camp with an oxygen mask over his face. He removed the mask and sat up, coughing. Karen looked up at him from her own position on the floor, paused in the middle of wrapping her leg.

“I woke up, then dragged you down here to the high camp.” She continued her wrapping.

“What happened?” Bruce asked, voice hoarse.

“I twisted my leg. Kept going on it, hyperventilated, and...then you found me. I would've died out there, if it hadn’t been for you.”

There was a brief silence. “Jim would not have wanted that for you.”

Karen looked down at her hands, her eyes watering. “I was just so...”

“Angry?” Bruce suggested knowingly.

Karen nodded. “He never got to say goodbye. And that isn't fair.”

“It's never fair.” Bruce’s words were hard, but his tone was soft. “Listen to me. I know. I’ve lost people. You don't get ‘fair.’ You don't get closure or goodbye. So, you embrace the anger; I've learned that the anger feels pretty good, better than the grief. I know that the anger gets me up, gets me going in the morning. But you have to be a little bit careful, because if you let yourself be driven by the anger, it will blind you, and you will get into trouble over and over again just so that you can feel, just so you can...beat something.”

Karen sniffed as the tears overflowed. “And what happens then?”

“Eventually, you run into something that your anger can't beat.”

“Like a mountain?”

“And you realize that your luck has run out. And it's a long way down. If you’re lucky, you find the people who are willing to pick you back up again.”

 

*

 

Down in the crevasse, Damian regained consciousness. The crevasse was a large, hollow space, with tall rock walls seeping with cold. He took a quick stock of his body—several parts bruised, nothing broken. Probably. Damian could live with that.

On the ground a couple feet from him lay Jason, still unconscious. Nothing obviously injured or broken. Damian would have to wake Jason soon—he was much more valuable awake, and it seemed inadvisable to remain in that rotting hole for any longer than necessary. Care would have to be taken, however; Jason had scars, both mental and physical, and tended to react volatilely when woken suddenly.

Damian flashed his flashlight in Jason’s face. “Hey, asshole.”

Jason’s eyes opened. He scowled up at Damian, batting the flashlight away from his face. “Stop it.” Jason sat up, cracking his neck, running the same evaluations as Damian. “That could've gone a lot worse.”

Damian sucked his teeth shone his flashlight around the crevasse, stopping on a bit of tarp on the far wall. Jason pushed himself up from the ground, and together they approached the tarp. Damian nudged Jason. Jason nudged Damian back. After a brief scuffle, Jason pulled the tarp off of Jim’s face.

“His leg's broken,” Damian observed.

Jason looked back up to the entrance of the crevasse. “Fell through the ice, broke his leg. That was it. It's gonna be a bitch getting us out of here, and there's two of us. One man by himself? Never stood a chance.”

Damian scuffed his boots against the rock floor. “He died in here? Alone?”

“They couldn't find his beacon.” Jason walked around, one hand pressed against the stone. “The stone walls ate the signal, then the storm sealed him in.” Jason stopped when he looped back around to Jim’s body, lifting the notebook and tucking it inside his own coat. “We got to get out of here. Inventory the equipment.”

Damian jabbed a finger towards Jim. “And him. We're getting him out, too.”

Jason deliberated for a moment. “Alright.” They worked in silence, inventorying the equipment, analyzing the angles of the crevasse, the height of their fall. Damian rifled through Jim’s pockets until he found Jim’s cellphone.

“Hey, pumpkin.” Jim’s voice filled the crevasse. Damian thumbed the phone to pause.

“Battery's okay, the cold kept it good. There's another message. Should we watch it?”

Jason looked at him from his position under the entrance. “That's for his wife, Damian. That's not for us.” Damian, for once, nodded and slipped the phone into his pocket before walking over to Jason.

“How is this going to work?”

“We don't have enough time to put the screws into the ice. So, I'm sending you up, and then you belay me up.”

“What about Jim?”

“We'll put a rigging on him, try to pull the body up.”

"‘ _Jim_.’" Damian insisted. “And he's coming with us.”

Jason shook his head but didn’t argue as Damian walked back towards the corpse and began securing a line. Jason swung a rope with a claw on the end and threw it out of the crevasse, hooking it to snow and rocks at the mountain’s surface.

“Alright,” Damian said, swiping his hands against his pants. “I go up, set up a pulley...”

“Assuming there's enough rope,” Jason grumbled.

“I pull you up, then him.”

“We're gonna dead-lift him out of here and then carry him back down the mountain?” Jason asked incredulously. “We're burning daylight, Damian.”

“Well, then, we better hurry,” Damian sniped. He began to climb the rope, but only made it a few feet before the rope snapped and Damian tumbled back to the ground. Jason hurried to his side.

“Damian! You alright?”

Damian waved a hand at Jason, motioning him back. “I got it. I got it.”

Jason looked to the rope, readying himself for a fight. “The rope snapped. We're gonna be short.” He gestured towards Jim. “I have to take the rigging off him; we need the rope.”

Before he could take more than a couple of steps, however, Damian rushed in front of him, pushing Jason in the center of his chest. “No!”

“Damian!” Jason hissed. “No! - It's done!”

“No!” Damian screamed. “This is what we're supposed to do! We're supposed to get him back to his wife! Bruce would do it, Dick would do it, Tim would do it!” Damian’s voice broke. “They would do the right thing! I want to do the right thing!” Jason realized with mild horror that Damian was crying, and that he cared much more about returning Jim’s body than Jason originally thought. Damian planted himself stubbornly beside Jim’s corpse.

Jason sighed quietly, lowering himself next to Damian. Jason leaned his head against the rock wall, exposing the long lines of his neck. A quiet moment passed, Damian doing his best to stifle his sniffles.

“Hey,” Jason murmured. “It's a good thing it was us.”

“Because we'd leave him,” Damian supplied accusatorily.

“Because they would've kept trying and they would've froze to death right next to him,” Jason said with feeling. “Especially Dick. So, it was a good thing it was us. The two of us, we do things they can't. Won't. We do whatever we have to, to survive.”

Damian curved into himself. “Does that make us bad?”

“Nah.” Jason slung an arm around Damian’s shoulders, which he allowed. “It makes us...us. Now, you can take that as a gift, or you can take it as a curse. And that's up to you.” A few more minutes passed before Jason placed his hands on his knees and leveraged himself into standing. He moved back towards the rope.”

“Wait,” Damian called, “I want to play that last message on his phone. Just in case he wanted us to do something for him.”

Jason shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Damian retrieved Jim’s phone from his pocket and pressed a few buttons. Jim’s voice filled the crevasse once more, and for the final time. “Attention, base camp.”  


*

  
Tim was Definitely Not Panicking, a fact he proved by repeating his missing teammates’ names over and over again. “Bruce? Jason? Damian?” He checked the signals. “Bruce? Jason? Damian?”

Unfortunately for him, only one person was in a position to respond. “Stop it!” Dick ordered. “You're driving me mad!”

“Hey. Hey! I am restraining from freaking out quite admirably.” He wasn’t.

“Just stay focused. Hurt's got no idea that his stock's going up, right?”

“No. The Germans are buying like crazy.”

In the main tent, Dick swanned over to Miyashita. “Mr. Miyashita,” Dick greeted in a fake British accent. “Konichiwa.”

Miyashita grinned. “Mr. Hurt's friend.”

Dick flicked one hand affectionately. “Well, to be honest, I work for the London Examiner. I was just trying to get a straight answer out of him. But you know what he's like.” He shrugged one shoulder as if to say “what can you do?”

“Ah, yes.”

“So!” Dick clapped his hands together. “Any comment about this buyout?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Miyashita said bravely. Liar.

“From the Germans. Check the stock price.” Miyashita obeyed, whipping out his phone. His forehead creased in worry.

“Excuse me.” Miyashita stepped away to speak to his people in rapid-fire Japanese.

“I'm running out of cons here,” Dick muttered. “Where are they?”

Tim’s voice crackled. “Okay, I got a fix on Bruce and Mrs. Craddock's signal coming down the mountain, but there's still no audio yet, and it looks like there's a big storm coming through, which is bouncing radio signals all over the place.”

“Let me know the second that you hear anything, okay?” Just as Dick finished speaking, Simon Hurt came at him from the side, grabbing Dick’s arm and pulling him around until they were face-to-face.

“A word,” Hurt hissed.

“ _Oui_?”

“Stop it. The Germans and the Japanese think I'm running a game on them.” Dick jerked his arm out of Hurt’s grasp. “I can't get my office on the phone. I have no idea what's going on, but what I do know is you're in the middle of it.”

Dick dropped the French accent and adopted the British one. “Check your stock price.”

“I can't.”

“Just give it a sec.” Dick channeled as much suave confidence as he could, and hoped like hell that Tim was paying attention. Hurt checked his phone.

“What the hell is going on?”

Dick glanced at the screen of Hurt’s phone and clicked his tongue. “Oh, dear. Miyashita's pulling out, which means the Germans are pulling out, which means your stock's gonna crash, and then we can take your company.”

“Nice accent,” Hurt sniped. Dick was almost offended; it was much more fun when Hurt was on the defensive. “Now, who are you? And what do you want?”

At that moment, Karen and Bruce entered the tent, and Dick felt such a rush of relief it was almost like he was twelve again and meeting his foster father for the first time. Bruce Wayne, riding in once again like a white knight. Dick didn’t know whether to hug him for showing up or hit him for making Dick worry in the first place. The answer, of course, was neither, because they had a con to run and Dick was a professional. Later, though. Later there would be blood.

“Karen!” Hurt exclaimed in shock. “What are you doing here? I mean—I mean, we're all so sorry.” He looked so earnest. Maybe Dick would punch him instead.

“Don't,” Karen warned, holding out a hand to prevent him from getting closer.

Dick sidled next to Bruce, whispering, “Hey, there you are! I'm running the Moscow circus con, and you're the Ivan. Go.”

“Okay, I'm kind of dying of altitude sickness here.”

Dick glared. “Well, then, do it quickly.” Tim choked on his own spit in the communications tent. Meanwhile, Hurt turned his ire on Bruce.

“God,” Hurt said, running a hand through his hair. “I am not buying any of this.”

Bruce made a show of sizing him up. “I don't care, okay? I can gut your company anytime I want and pick up the pieces later. Look, the widow gave me the notebook. The account numbers, everything I need to prove that the majority of your mortgage assets aren't even yours.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Except, of course, the worthless ones.” Dick quietly led Karen away from the scene and into the crowd, where she’d have some insulation.

“You're bluffing.”

Bruce shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Okay. Have you heard from your Russian?”

“What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Bruce asked. “What I want is for you to wait a few hours. Just stall, okay, because we're getting into position to profit from Miyashita's announcement.”

“When I get back, I want to see that notebook.” And with a final glare, he left.

 

*

 

“Tim!” Jason’s voice came in over the comm, and Tim startled in relief.

“Y-Yes?” Tim asked, eyes flying to Jason and Damian’s position on the monitor. “Yes! ...wait. Damian. Damian? You there?”

“Talking...uses...oxygen.” Damian panted. It had been a long way up the mountain, and it would be a long way down.

“Right.” Tim’s head bobbled. He begged himself to stop being weird. “Look, y'all, I just...I just want to say that y'all are my peoples, and—"

“Tim.” Jason interrupted.

“—you know, I was so scared—”

“Tim, shut up! Listen to this.” Damian held up Jim’s phone, queuing his final video.

“Attention, base camp.”  


*

 

In the main tent, Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now, let me get this straight. When I said, ‘simple stall,’ you heard, ‘multinational, high-finance feeding frenzy,’ right?”

Dick shrugged guilelessly. “Tomahto, tomato.”

Tim’s voice sounded over the comms. “Bruce, I've got Jason and Damian coming down the mountain, and I've got something you need to hear.” Bruce listened intently to the message, but was interrupted before he could give further instructions. Said interruption came in the form of an angry Simon Hunt, who walked up to Bruce before punching him in the face.

“What the hell was that for?” Bruce asked, which was generally a reasonable question to ask after getting punched in the face.

“Calling your bluff,” Hunt answered. “Show me the notebook, or I'm closing the deal.”

Bruce’s jaw clicked shut, but he attempted to soldier forward. “I'll have to go get the notebook.”

“You haven't got it, have you?” Hurt sneered. Bruce just looked at him. “That's what I thought. Tell you what: if, and only if, your team finds it, I'll tell my fella not to kill them if they hand it over. Hell, he'll even give them a ride back down the mountain.” And with a cheery wave, Hurt left.

Bruce glared darkly at Hunt’s back, and left the main tent in favor of the communications tent and a rendezvous with Tim. He stumbled into the tent and fell into the nearest chair, which happened to be the chair Karen occupied earlier. Bruce rubbed his temples. Altitude sickness, alcoholism, stress…the reason didn’t matter. The symptoms didn’t matter. None of it did. Bruce had a job to do, and as long as that was true, he couldn’t give in.

“This is not going well for you,” Tim observed.

Bruce sighed through his nose. “I got some bad news and some good news. Bad news is Hurt knows we don't have the notebook yet.”

“And the good news?”

“He said, ‘give them a ride.’”  


*

 

Jason and Damian approached the high camp. Jason mused that the tent seemed different on the way down than it had on the way up, perhaps the effect of his most recent brush with death. Either that, or the snow mobile parked outside which definitely belonged to Hurt’s Russian friend, who was conspicuously absent.

“Now, where can he be?” Jason murmured. He crept towards the orange tent, gesturing for Damian to stay near the snow mobile, where he would be safe and in plain sight. In plain sight. Wait…

The blood rushed from Jason’s face as he turned back to the snow mobile, calling Damian’s name.

“Damian!”

Too late. A tale figure burst from the snow beside the snow mobile, snatching Damian and bringing a gun against his head. Jason was intimately familiar with guns. He knew them inside and out; the weight; the grip; potential maneuvers and counter-maneuvers. But there was nothing he could do from ten feet away while a gun was held to the head of someone who was not an acceptable loss.

“The notebook,” the Russian commanded. “Drop it!”

Damian glowered despite his precarious position. “Todd, no! The notebook is all we have!”

Jason slowly removed the notebook from his coat, telegraphing his movements. No sense in taking unnecessary risks. He threw the notebook at the Russian’s feet. While the Russian’s eyes were on Jason, Damian carefully slipped Jim’s phone into the Russian’s pants pocket. The Russian shoved Damian away roughly, moving the gun towards Jason as the larger threat. With the other hand, he removed a flare and lit it, turning over the notebook with his foot and dropping the flare on top. Jason and Damian watched the fire eat its way through the pages, until their solid evidence was nothing but ashes and charred leather.

 

*

 

Simon Hurt burst into the communications tent, which was empty except for Tim, Bruce having left some ten minutes prior to reconvene with Dick and Karen in the main tent. Tim tried not to look guilty or startled, reminding himself that Hurt had no idea he was part of Bruce’s team.

“You!” Hurt barked. “I got a snowmobile out there. Frequency 2-6-8. Get him on the line right now.”

Tim nodded and scrambled to comply. “Oh. Okay. 2-6-8.”

Hurt picked up the radio. “Dmitri, you hear me?” The Russian, Dmitri, pinged his location on the monitor.

“I destroyed the notebook,” Dmitri confirmed. “Nothing but ashes.”

Hurt smirked. “Good work. You get back here as fast as you can.” He put back the radio and exited the tent.

Tim spoke into his comm. “Bruce? Bruce, we got a serious problem.”  


*

 

Once again in the main tent, Simon Hurt looked smug, which was not unusual, and was talking to Miyashita, which was. “I assure you, you will not regret this deal,” Hurt said.

“We are looking forward to it, Mr. Hurt.”

“As am I. Domo arigato.”

"Arigato." Miyashita smiled, shook Hurt’s hand, and walked off. Hurt caught sight of Bruce and Karen where they were chatting, and saluted them.

Abruptly, Jim’s video began playing on the TV monitors scattered throughout the tent. Jim’s voice rang out. “Attention, base camp. I hope I'm in range. This is Jim Craddock. I'm injured. I've found shelter in this cave. But I, ah, I don't think I'm gonna make it down the mountain. Simon cut my rope and let me fall.”

“No. No. That didn't happen!” Hurt cried.

“Simon Hurt cut my rope,” Jim repeated, clear as day. The businessmen and assorted climbers turned to Hurt in shock and horror.

“Where is this coming from?!” Dmitri entered the tent.

Jim continued. “I fell back on the...”

“You!” Hurt grabbed Dmitri by the front of his coat. “What have you done?!” Dmitri looked confused and communicated, through signs, that he had no idea what the hell was going on.

“…and I broke my leg. And...” Hurt released Dmitri, catching sight of the phone in his pocket, but by then it was too late. “…I saw him do it. I saw him. I don't think...I don't think he planned it, but...” Two Park Rangers entered the tent, making a beeline towards Hunt.

A gruff ranger stepped forward, seizing Hunt by the arm. “You're under arrest. Let's go.”

“…but he saw me talking to the other executives…”

Hurt protested. “Hey. Hey. What—this is just hearsay.” The other ranger stepped forward, bracketing Hunt.

Bruce disagreed in a mild tone. “A dying declaration...admissible in court.”

“…when he saw his chance to get rid of me, he took it…”

“Come with us, Mr. Hurt,” the second ranger said, and together the rangers carted him off.

Everyone in the main tent could hear Hunt screaming as he was dragged out. “You can't do this to me! Fuck off!” As Hurt struggled his way out of the tent, Jason and Damian entered, looking worse for wear.

“…there must be a lot more than what I found…”

“Tim, how are you doing this?” Dick asked.

“I was able to hack his phone. From there, it was easy enough to transmit the video to all available monitors.”

“Not bad, Drake,” Jason said. If Tim preened a bit, well, no one was there to see him.

Jim’s message continued. “I'm e-mailing this video to you now. I only hope that there's enough signal strength for it to get through. Uh...Karen.” On the screens, Jim began to cry. Karen stared at the monitor intently, afraid of missing a single moment. “Karen, if you get this, sweetie, everybody that goes up a mountain rehearses this speech in their head. And, um...I guess...I guess it just comes down to this. I love you. I just love the hell out of you. And I always have. So, don't come up here looking for me, because I'm not up here. I am right there next to you, wherever you are. Okay? I love you, pumpkin.”

“I love you, too,” Karen cried. Dick surreptitiously wiped his eyes.

“You did it,” Jason said. “You brought him back to her.” Jason turned to exit the tent as Tim entered, and he clapped his hand against Tim’s shoulder as he passed.

Tim saw Damian and startled. “Uh... hey.” Tim knocked his fist against Damian’s shoulder awkwardly. Damian threw his arms around Tim quickly, and just as quickly withdrew, trotting along behind Jason. Dick looked proud of the boys for bonding, jealous that he wasn’t receiving any of the hugs, and guilty for feeling jealous. He wondered idly what he would have to do to be hugged next. Dick slanted a look towards Bruce, who was coincidentally concentrating very hard on nothing in particular.

The team traveled back to Gotham and Bruce’s apartment. Tim headed to the coffee maker determinedly, swearing to himself that he would never be caught un-caffeinated on a mission again.

Damian popped up behind Tim, effectively scaring the shit out of him. “You realize this isn't going to be normal, right? The hugging thing?”

Tim took a long sip of coffee, looking around the apartment. He and Damian stood in the kitchen, Bruce poured himself a drink at the bar, and Dick and Jason bickered in the living room, potentially about the egalitarianism of hugs. “You know, there’s a saying that what's normal is whatever works for you.” Tim shrugged. “We all work okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> some of it is unavoidable due to the nature of the show, but if you read romantic ships into this fic I will sneak into your house and steal all of your spoons


End file.
